In Between Days

I'm stuck in Chicago for a long time on the trip back. So I go to Chili's and sit down for a beer and burger.








Now, I ordered the meal knowing that it might go badly. I have eaten only spicy food for two months- would American cusine seem bland and boring? Big and bloating? Or better than best?
Well, actually it seemed kind of blah blah blah. Not quite familiar enough to overcome it's taste to become satisfying.
Not that I would prefer chicken korma right now, it's just that my tastes, my sense of time, my day to day routine, my sleep schedule, what seems normal, everything is in transition at the moment. I'm in between. I'm stuck in that Indian half hour delay.
Perhaps I'm being dramatic. All I know is; I feel weird, I miss my friends and family and don't want to get so comfortable at home that I forget that.
Somebody asked me if I had "picked up" Hinduism while there. Not really. But I thought about Shiva a little on the trip. That dude isn't afraid to clean house to get the new stuff in. I think that that's good for me to focus on. Set your sights on change and make it happen.
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Meanwhile: my metaphoric state has become quite real. I am stranded between home and the road. Stuck in Chicago. The person that booked our travel only allowed an hour for me to get my bags, clear customs and catch my next flight. Well, Air India 127 taxied into O'Hare at the time my connecting flight was leaving. Hurm.
So, I go to American and the lady is a total jerkface and sends me back to Air India. After 45 mins there the guy sends me back to American. Now during that time he told me that there was no flights and I would have to stay over and take the 9am flight. Okfine, but then they somehow find me one and I go back to American get booked, and settle in for the 6-plus hour wait.
Cue the Mother Nature drama as we learn that after the long wait my flight and three others are all cancelled due to wind.
I could have been sleeping at the hotel and booked for the morning, but now I'm in a giant crush of people trying to get re-booked. After an hour or so of listening to the Worlds Most Annoying Spring Break Teens I get booked and then it's several hours of waiting for my bags as three planeloads of luggage is disgorged into baggage area 5. My two carry-on bags are heavy and I'm already tired, so when I finally get the rest of my luggage, I'm a dead man. Now I have a huge walk to the hotel shuttle.
Because my problem is now due to weather, and not Air India's tardiness, the best AA will do is give me a discount at the Holiday Inn. Whatever, I just want to sleep. Cue the A Billion Dudes With The Same Problem problem. After waiting in the freezing cold for twenty minutes, the Holiday Inn guy tells me there is No Vacancy. Ha ha. Of course not. There is a Hilton across the street fron the shuttle waiting area so I drag my butt over there feeling about like Napoleon's army retreating from Russia.
Happy happy, the rooms are only $239! I'm too tired to argue. I take one and fall down dead.
Except that my sleep schedule as I mentioned earlier is a mess, so I wake up at 4 hours later. Have I complained enough? The one good news so far is that they originally had me booked out today at 9:45pm. So I went from free hotel and 9am flight to expensive hotel and 9pm flight. Since checkout is at noon that would make for a long day in the airport. But at 4am I called re-booking and they found me a one-stopper that leaves at 2:45. Gets into Boston around 10. Still a god-awful day, but less so.
Fun sidebar. One of the things we were looking forward to in returning to the US was the language familiarity. It gets tiring working to understand the Indian accent. But since I've been in Chicago, most everyone I've dealt with has their own dialect. Armenian baggage claim, Eastern Euro ticket lady, Japanese waitress. I really am in-between. Shiva destroys things. Maybe he brought the wind to teach me something more. I dunno. I hope my lesson is over soon, though.

Posted from my iPhone

Namaste

The beginning of the Good-Byes started tonight. We're going to leave a little early tomorrow, which is our last day. Now, by "a little early" I mean we're working closer to 8 hours and less like 12.
Mikey realized that that meant he was bidding adieu to the 3rd shifters today. He's splashed water on his face to trick the easily dupe-able Beth into thinking he had been crying (she fell for it of course) but there are some real mixed emotions there in the play tears.
We've been through some hard work with sleeves rolled up next to these good people for two months. We're happy, sad, reticent, concerned, uncertain, satisfied, amazed, overjoyed, hungry, tired, proud, and pulverized. I know I'm not quite the same.
So, we waved the late-night kids onward and hit the trail.
This is some of them by the way:
Dang, I love the high sign. Even super-serious Eranna (center) busts out the grin when I make them do the move.

And this is Sasi, Sham and Ram. You likely know Sasi and Sham. I've worked closely with them this trip. With Sham dating back to last year and the start of this blog.

I wanted to give special props to Sasi, though. He's took me to Republic Day, he came to get me on Cricket Day and has been considerate and gracious throughout. I really appreciate what he's done for me this trip. Thanks, Sasi. Now grow your hair back.

And, thank you, blog reader. It's been a great lifeline for me to see your responses. It's helped tie me to home when I had few touchstones. And I know and appreciate the lurkers out there. According to statcounter, this blog has been hit over 3,0o0 times this yeat by several hundred users. That's nice and well appreciated. I wrote this for my family and friends to share in this trip a little. I'm greatful to hear your responses and know that you are out there, even if you aren't posting. Thank you.

I've had fun, felt just about everything possible, seen some crazy stuff, tried new things and come out better than I went in. I'm closing in on the end and am not sure if I will post again from in-country. So thank you, blog, thank you India.

Namaste.

Ninjas!

Ok, they're not ninjas, but I have been fascinated by the Muslim ladies around here. We all catch them in the crowd and want to see what cool things they are doing. This is probably bad, but one day we were in a shopping area and this young ninja slid by me. She was very petite and her burka was less drapey than others if you acquire my drift. As we crossed she flipped her big, Egyptian-style eyes back at me and gave me a look.

Pow. My heart went pitta-pat. So mysterious! Such pretty eyes. It was a nice moment.
I have to admit that it's easy to think of Muslims as alien, as Other. Even as a total stranger in this ancient culture, full of differing races, religions, creeds and castes, I somehow see Muslims as even more separate and different than the others when really, they fit in and I'm the alien. As I write this I feel like what I'm describing is my own racism. I guess I'll have to work on that.

Still. I'm not entirely comfortable with some of the treatment of the ladies that goes on.

Which takes me to Women's Day.

They had a holiday to celebrate women here recently. It was coinciding with a vote in government to create a quota of 33% women in legislative bodies. This created a tumult that has been all over the news. In congress some dudes went up to the speaker and expressed their anti-Lady-Law outrage by throwing papers and grabbing the microphone. It made calling Obama a liar seem like genteel behavior. The bill passed but there is more hubbub about it today. It's hard to follow the politics of it in the newspaper because they abbreviate everything. Typica headline:

"RJD, SP MPs Sully RS!"

For the most part, women in business are treated well. Indians generally assume that if a woman got to a position of authority that she is probably pretty capable. That's a great attitude that contrasts starkly with a common American assumption about how some women get to power. There is still a lot of chauvanism and macho negativity going on here though. I don't think a typical Indian woman has as many options as an American one. I'm not going to go into the uglier side of women's issues and crime here, but some tough stuff goes on and we see can read that in the paper without abbreviations.

Sigh. I guess I'm not sure I have a clear point here. I'm not trying to make broad comments about a culture, especially one I know so little about. Let me be clear: in two months, the most I've learned is that I have a lot to learn. I don't really understand anything. I guess I just feel like maybe the ninjas under their burkas are a typical part of Indian culture as well. And all that that represents.

One Block Over

We needed to do a little more shopping today, so we went back to Commercial street. The tuk-tuk drivers dropped us off a block down from where they usually do though. No problem, we'll just go down one street and then hang a left, we'd be right back in familiar territory. Except that there was no left one block down. We had to go deeper and farther off the block thaan we usually do. This put us into some slummier territory.
By now no one was phased in the least that we were walking through weird neighborhoods with cows and cow poop garbage and men peeing on corner walls. We navigated through the mix without a thought, stepping between cars like it was nothing.
That section of town tends to be organized by shop types. So all the shoe stores are in one place for example. This section had more temples. You can see my man Hanuman above. He was on the roof of a small temple. Maybe he was 12' tall.
Here's another temple. Behind Beth a random cow is eating garbage. People would walk up and toss more garbage into the pile, perhaps to feed the hungry cow. A crow or some other black bird hopped up and down on the cow's back, jumping between him and the sign. In the midst of all this sensory input, it was the sculpture by the door that got Beth's attention.
This to me pointed out how far we had come.

We saw a side of Commercial street that was new and unvarnished. Even those of us with germ issues walked through it as though it was a great new thing.

Here we saw men gambling. They had scratched a hopscotch-style grid into the street and were marking squares with twigs. The game was played with small shells that thew shook and flipped with the back of their hand. The wager was a rupee. The were happy to show us the game, although it made no sense at all.

Next to them, women assembled garlands and chatted lightly. These were the workers behind the commerce and it was cool to see.

It was a great view and a nice walk. At the end of it, we looped back onto one of the streets we new and found just the shop we were looking for. I got everything I wanted, including something for me at last. Nice walk.

Bannerghatta National Park

We got up and went to Bannerghatta National Park today. It was a tough morning. I was very tired and disappointed to see that they had arranged us a small sedan for five people. That meant three in the back on a road with lots of stop-start jerky driving.

We got there in due time and soon enough I had gotten us tickets for the Grand Safari. We opted for the private bus, which was significantly more, but still not bad.

So the deal is, part of the National Park is cordoned off as this sort-of drive through zoo and safari. Jurassic Park style. We get the full tour, so it's us, our driver (?) the combi driver and a spare guy to help take photos that no one asked for.

We go through the herbivore section with deer and buffalo and some fun birds. The driver would stop the car when he spotted things in the underbrush for us to see. The Bear Section was next. They were those weird Chinese-style bears with the goofy mouths. I have some shots on Flickr of them. They were fun, foraging for tamarind and such.

We also saw lions, but that there wasn't much going on there.

The star of the show were the tigers so of course they came last. When we first rolled in we didn't see any anywhere. Big disappointment. We got to the end and saw that the animals were being cordoned off somehow. There was wide open areas with large areas to roam, but they seem to control their movements with feeding. So, the let the tigers out and right away they come up to our vehicle. We had run over some elephant poop earlier and they were pretty interested in that.

The bulk of them disperse, but a 3-year old white male hangs out near the car in the shade. He seems like he just wants some peace and quiet.

But here comes this chick and she isn't having any of it. She repeatedly went up to him and pestered him. He would put up with for a bit, and then move away. She stalked him, her body all tense and slow while he flicked his tail indolently in the shade. Our driver dutifully moved with him to catch the drama unfolding.

Eventually it got more heated, and instead of just moving away, the young male would make his displeasure more known. They would rear up together at some invisible cue, snarling and swatting. This repeated several times until:

Tiger fight!
They tussled repeatedly like this. It was pretty intense to watch. The trainers, who we had all but forgotten about, shouted them down and they returned to their tense state of detent.

It was quite a show.

After the safari was over we had kind of a tiff with the unwanted-photo guy. I tipped him out of respect, but he asked for more, putting his finger into my wallet. I told him to step off, that he hadn't taken any shots for me so be cool. His aggressiveness led to way-over-tipping by the group and it left a sort of bad taste in our mouths at the end of an otherwise-great trip.

Next we checked out the zoo part. It was hot and by the end of it I was ready for a break. Sweetly, the end of our walk was the elephant enclosure. The mahoots would encourage you to come up and touch the animals, posing with them for photos. Of course I did.
The hairs on an elephant's head are wirey- like cleaning brush bristles. The trunk is leathery, but soft. So, a rough texture, but pliable, giving and dry.

Lois had brought fruit for the monkeys we hoped to see and busted out an apple:

Shwam! Jumbo took it downtown. This resulted in a general tumult as more elephants come over, extending their trunks gently across the gap into Lois' bag to get more treats.

We stopped for an ice cream and then went and got ready for an elephant ride. There was some confusion about this due to language difficulties and when we get where we thought we belonged, there were no rides going on. Aha; no elephants loaded up yet! They had to saddle them. The mahoots shoo'd us out of the way and loaded up the beasts right in front of us.

This had a profound effect.

We were very pleased to see the process of loading up the cart and to see the handlers mastery, but it was sad to see the old girl sit ponderously down and put up with the process and the burden. Suddenly we felt kind of like we shouldn't go. Fortunately, that didnt last very long and then it was off with the shoes and up on the elephant. It was a nice ride and good cap to the day.

But then: as we walked out, we got hit with the old mother-and-child-beggar combo. I gave some as always but quickly ran out of low denominations. This resulted in some beggars not getting paid and me getting hounded all the way back to the car by incredibly-pathetic sad eyed babies. Not good.

It led to some more moral quandries and gray areas. Which got me thinking: why did the tigers fight? There were bears who were aggressive to each other that were separated. Why let out two tigers of different sexes and species in front of us? Unless the resulting aggressiveness was for our benefit? I don't know. It was cool, but was it engineered, and if so, how cool is that? I think it's best to notice these thoughts, but not to dwell on them. My motto in India is to go with whatever it offers. And today the offerings were pretty good.

Playing Dad

This is Mike and his two girlfriends, Krithika and Bhargavie. Sorry, Yvette, I think this time it's pure el-you-vee, like it was stamped on a candy heart! Both girls I had doubts about at one point, but Mike's brought them around and they are starting to produce decent numbers for new kids. It's nice to see this batch starting to work and get into the deeper end of the content pool.

Here, we can see that Mike has also had an influence on Nethra. At least on Nethra's hairdo. He came in today with a new look and everyone was saying it was all Mike. I walked up to him with a clipboard and starting saying "Ok, Mike I need those TPS reports by Monday..." Then I lost it at my own lame jape and busted off down the aisle laughing like a fool.

Now, my plan for this engagement was arranged so that the two graphics trainers, Mike and Shawn, would bond with their classes and leave me as the heavy. They nuture and coach them along, I scare them and get mad about their performance. That's what I've done, so it was kind of unusual for me to be playing jokes like that on them.

It's a new role for me. I'm usually the one winning the class' hearts and helping them along. Now I'm the guy giving them a stern lecture about how their output isn't cutting it and where the hell are all those hot ads? I can't say I'm upset about it. I took this job to try new things and to do more managing. This is that. It's interesting that it's happening in a different country. I wonder how I'll come out on the other side. I think I've learned a fair amount this trip.

And speaking of authority figures: check out this guy!

He's one of the night guards. He's maybe 5'2". Little whip of a guy. He comes around checking on who's where and who needs a ride. He doesn't spreak very good English. Mostly he grins at us like this and waves.

Personally, he terrifies me. This is the guy who smiles all day but when the stuff goes down, he's the Chief Interogation Officer under Pol Pot. I think this dude could do some real damage. Check him out. That grin could be the last thing you see.

JK of course. Time for bed. Early day tomorrow- Nat'l Park day! Wahoo.

Window to the Strange

I wish my brother and his wife could read the newspapers here. They are reporters and have decried the Entertain-ification of the news.
Well, the news here is written with a gleeful lack of objectivity. There was an article about the varying age-growth patterns in the different Indian states that starts like this:

"Like everything else about China, its age growth patterns are boring. The Indian growth rates are as varied and entertaingly unique as its peoples!"

In a story about a young actress they declared that "If she romps in a bikini next film she is certain to win the best actress honours!"

The language is a bit different as well. They refered to a gang of murderers and rapists the other days as "a pack of miscreants". Like "Oh, those scamps!

I also like that strange, minor events become Big News. There was a lengthy article a while back about how Jessica Simpson farted during a business meeting. It was right out of the Weekly World News. It went on about how she initially tried to conceal the deed, but her mother was there and heard it. She chastized Jessica in front of the other business people, who were there to discuss her jeans line. They responded with awkward silence.
They also re-run entertainment stories from months ago as though it were current news. There was a series of notes on Lady Gaga and how she was suspected of being a man. Apparently this was in the US some time back and stemmed from an on-stage prank. They love reporting weird things about Western stars.
The real news is hard to understand, and can seem bizare. There was a story about a series of riots recently. These were like turning-over-cars-and-setting-fires type riots. After the recent terrorist attack in Pune, we pay close attention to stories like this. So you read further and discover the source that sparked the violence: the revelation that a religious leader had made a sex tape. Wha? An unmarried person has sex in their own home and you want to tip over a car? OK.
Every day there are stories that underline how little I understand about this culture. Sometimes it's bizarre, sometimes it's sad, sometimes I just don't get it. But, unlike China, it is never boring.

The Wrong Side of the World

I heard today that Steve came into the office and cleaned out his stuff.

I can't really tell you how that bums me out. We sat next to each other for 4 years and spent much of our time together. He guided me through that crazy first year with a big corporation and we went through the wars together. Now he's gone and another good friend will follow soon after.

I just want to thank Steve for that and the great times we had in and outside of work. I know that we will hang out again, and I look forward to that. But the days on the team with Deb and Maria were pretty great and I'm sad to see them go. It's tough when a good team gets broken up and you can't do anything about it. The distance from home is heavy with me tonight.

Guru & Senil

One day on the trip Val was telling me about a conference she was at when they divided the people up into groups. Some were innovators, others were leaders, they each had some archetypical niche to play. The idea was to understand the typical characteristics of each style so that you could work with the other types better.
I didn't go to that seminar so I don't have all the catch phrases or ideagrams, but I think I know enough to tell you a bit about these two gentlemen. That's Guru on the left as faithful readers likely know. He was with me in another trip back in the States. On the right is Senil. I'm not sure if I have the spelling right, I 've only heard it said out loud.
These guys are both managers from a vendor we are working with. Guru's management archetype is the Scribe. The kid loves spreadsheets and records everything that gets decided or mentioned in one. I bet he could show me a spreadsheet charting our dinner preferences for the past six weeks. This obsessive tracking and record-keeping can be kind of a drag, but it's vital stuff to the process. When I see him sometimes I have to admit I groan because I know he wants to check up on a deliverable or other item that I owe. He's on top of things, I'm all over the place trying to keep it straight.
Senil I know less well. He joined the project later and for the first few weeks didn't say much of anything. I like him, though. He has a funny laugh and seems to enjoy goading people into doing silly things in public. He doesn't mind throwing down when it's required as well. Guru writes it all down and twitches over it, Senil kind of shows up and gives it a grin. Unfortunately, he's had some trouble with his Visa, so it's uncertain what will happen next as he was slated to work stateside. He seems like the archetype that Rolls With It. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Naveed and Mr. K

These are the two paging leads.

Kumeresh on the left and Naveed on the right.

Now, I don't work as closely with these two as some of the others, so you can take what I say for what it's worth. First, dear readers, there are two main sections in the phone book: the white pages and the yellow pages. The white pages don't have a lot of ads in them, they have a lot of rules to follow and they aren't much fun. They are easier to put together, but also require their own particular discipline.

Yellow pages are where the action is. Things are all over the place, there's lots of color, choices you make have cascading effects, lots of things can go wrong, but there is also some room for creativity.

Looking at these two chaps, tell me which one is White Pages and which is Yellow?

Of course.

Kumeresh with his charming smile is Class (yellow) and serious Naveed is Alpha (white). Their personalities dovetail their areas of expertise. They almost even dress the part.

Dan called Kumeresh "Mr. K" so that's what I do, too. Yesterday at Holi I saw him dancing. It was sort of a combination of a calypso strut with Bill Cosby from the opening sequence of the Cosby Show. It was a fine dance and he almost stole the show. He's easy to like without him having to actually do very much. It makes you like him more when you see that he's on the ball.

I don't recall seeing Naveed dance at all. It might have surprised me if he did. But, he's always there, taking care of business. Plodding along, doing the hard work that needs getting done. Sometimes when people are very quiet, it's easy to disregard them. Naveed comes with quality, though. Two sections of the same book. Two very different men.

Holi

My friend Hare tells us that Holi is a metaphoric recreation of Krishna at play in a garden. If this is the case, Krishna parties like a rock star.
Here's the breakdown: we get into the office and do the usual take care of business. We have some important meetings that will set a tone for things I have to do tomorrow and then it's up to the roof to see what the score is. Everyone is gathered and milling around. The keening of a Hindi song plays over the loudspeakers as I walk through the group over to Rosemary to see what's going on. Doing so, I pass through one group into the clearing of the center floor. Rose takes two quick steps towards me, her face as innocent as a lamb's.
Then it's WHAP! Right in the mush with a handful of red powder!
The place goes nuts and Holi is on. I do the logical thing and grab myself a handful from a nearby table and take off after her. She runs gamely but I whap her one and pretty much the whole place goes crazy, smashing each other in the face with dyes and powders.
This goes on for a long time. There must be 150 people on the roof, each giving as good as they got, powder flying everywhere. We burn through four or five large bags of the stuff until everyone is somewhere between red-brown and purple as all the colors run together. It's a chance to whack your buddy, whack your boss, whack that girl down the hall you are too shy to talk to.

Then when we are out of powder, the music starts. It's uptempo Indian stuff; Ohm, Shanti Ohm and that sort of thing. At first no one will dance, so Rose tells me it's up to me. Always willing to make a fool of myself, I break out onto the floor and shake it around a bit. Soon the others join me and it's a painted dance party on the roof.

Rosemary does the pop and lock, breaks out the hipsway and moonwalks out. My other teammates aren't as dancey and hug the wall, but RF and I represent and the rest of them show us how it's done Bangalore Style. I gamely try out their dances, and they politely ape mine back.

Afterwards, they all smile and congratulate me on my great dancing. I realize that this mostly translates as being pleased that I tried to fully participate in their traditions, not that my dancing was any good at all. In fact, I think they think I'm rather silly and an object of humor, but I don't care. I had a great time and danced because I was happy.

Now: I must say: Holi was great, but sitting at work all day afterwards was kind of a bummer. Holi clearly needs to be the end of the day, not the beginning. Plus, my advice to you is don't eat that stuff. I took a big mouthful and felt off all night. Being at work, we also didn't get to participate in the traditional Holi drink, which has been described to as somewhat potent. Maybe next year. Happy Holi!